208 CAPTURE OF CAPITAL.

defile enabled but few to reach the ground above the road*
They fought so stubbornly, however, that most of them were
killed ; for the lay of the land was such that they were com-
pelled to fight up the steep mountain-side. This, in olden
times, was a much more serious obstacle than since the inven-
tion of gunpowder, for it was hard to hurl darts effectively
against an enemy standing on ground far above you. Tlie
train was then enabled to make its way out of the bad ground
of the pass, and down the road, towards the plain beyond.

Some writers have placed at modern Chambery the town
to which the barbarians retired at night from the pass Han-
nibal had just forced. But the site of this town is too far
from the pass to enable the barbarians to get to it each night
and regain their posts by morning. Bourget would be a
much more likely place, though Chambery was apt to be the
location of the chief place of the valley.

The road, from the pass down to the foot of the Mt. du
Chat, overhangs the lake of Bourget, and the fact that Poly-
bius does not mention this splendid sheet of water has been
quoted against this route. But the lake had no military sig-
nificance, and it was natural enough that Polybius should not
mention it in connection with a military operation, any more
than expend rhetoric on the magnificence of the Alps.

On reaching the level, Hannibal advanced on the city of
the Allobroges, which he easily captured, as it was bared of
defenders. Very likely this was on the site of modern Cham-
bery, about ten miles from the pass. Here he found many
horses, beasts of burden and captives, and corn and cattle
enough for three days' rations. These rich supplies coincide
with the natural fertility of the Chambery plain, to which the
plains about modem Aix les Bains are tributary. In fact,
the entire valley of the Isere is rich beyond any other which
is the approach to a pass suggested as the one by which Han--
Bernard in 1800, it was yet, like Napoleon's, but a part of